What I Don't Know

I don't know whether I'm qualified to define a morality for all young people, or even why I care so much. I figure it's as much for myself as for others. I don't know why it gets harder to achieve your potential after childhood, how to balance pragmatism and idealism, when high standards bleed into obsessive perfectionism. I don't know if anything I say applies to girls, or why more girls comment on what I write even though the image of a warrior is masculine to me. I don't know if it really is masculine.

I don't know the concrete lines of connection between employment and defining a young person's character. Hopefully it is workable, but often it seems we sell our souls for money, so we choose to be poor and truthful or rich and lost. I don't know how much of what I write is anger or resentment, how much is optimism, and if my readers feel the same. I think there's a mix of both, or optimism motivated by frustration. Am I conveying a good set of ideals? Or am I caught in an echo chamber? What is appropriate to reveal? I don't know how to use public writing to assert a solid sense of personal integrity, and I certainly don't know why attempting to do so seems to inspire my friends. I want to get people where they feel empowered and capable of taking on the world, making the changes they want to make, being the person they want to be. So how can my life experiences be universalized?

I don't even know if I write for others, or why I write in the first place. How to be honest and open without saying too much, how not to censor myself without getting into trouble. How to package so much - a lifestyle - into words.

-(**

Image source: Dom Dada on Flickr